LGBTQ Advocate Kathy Griffin Delivers More Than Just Jokes

After a year of being disavowed by Hollywood, attacked by the Oval Office, and shunned by many fans, Kathy Griffin returns to Houston on her new tour triumphant.

“In the words of my new friend, Robert Di Nero, ‘Fuck Trump!’”

Photo by Eric Edward Schell of Houston’s Pride Portraits.

This opening line set the precedent (or, should we say ‘president’) for the rest of the evening of stories regaled to an audience by one of Donald Trump’s largest opposers and one of the LGBTQ community’s most long-standing and active advocates. Kathy Griffin, the self-proclaimed D-list celebrity who became one of the many faces of the resistance against President Donald Trump, detailed for over three hours last Monday night the events of the last year that launched into a world-wide spotlight after she released a photo of herself holding up what appeared to be Donald Trump’s bloody head (in reality: a Halloween mask covered in ketchup). Kathy, keeping true to her storytelling manor of comedy, kept the laughter coming but also allowed herself to become real and vulnerable as she laid out the details of the threats against her life and the lives of her family.

As a disclaimer, I’m a huge Kathy fan. I’ve been each of her last three shows in Houston prior to this, buying pre-sale tickets the minute they become available online for purchase and following her on social medial. I have even attended a show the day after having my tonsils removed (thank god for pain killers). To say the least, this was the show for which I was living. I couldn’t wait for her to dish the tea … and boy did she she serve that shit up.

Throughout the entire night, Jones Hall in Downtown Houston was riddled with laughter, gay gasps, ‘Yas queens’, and slow applauses. I’ve often heard that a comedian’s material comes from their pain; and this couldn’t be more true in the cases of such stand-ups as Hannah Gadsby in her recent Netflix special Nanette. Kathy has done the same by taking her hardship, her blacklisting in Hollywood, and the multitude of death threats by turning her agony into material to use in a place where she is able to enable other women and Donald Trump resisters to stand up for their first amendment rights and to speak out against the atrocities of this administration. Recently, Griffin has teamed up with Stormy Daniels — the adult film star who has been said to have had a problematic affair with the president only to be later asked to never speak of it — after Daniels was arrested at a Columbus, Ohio strip club for touching an undercover officer who asked to have a photo with the performer after her second show.

What I admire about the LGBTQIA community is that it’s a community that knows how to mobilize. I always say as a feminist, “We’ve got to learn from the gays, as women we bitch and moan, but gays actually get legislation done, they write bills, put candidates up and get them elected.”

From being on Interpol’s travel advisory list to traveling internationally and being detained in multiple countries on her world-wide tour, Griffin has not let anything stop her from telling her story and speaking out against the administration. She has built up an alliance of other celebrities around the world that stand with her. But in that pain comes a greater deal of suffering — losing out of strong allies like former CNN New Year’s Eve co-host and longtime friend, Anderson Cooper. In a letter she read to the crowd from a fan in Florida, Kathy revealed that a gay man should never turn on a “fag hag”. The room erupted into laughter because … well … the truth is the truth. Kathy Griffin has been one of the few celebrities of our time that has — since the beginning of career spanning nearly 40 years — been a tireless and outspoken advocate for LGBTQ people, LGBTQ rights, and LGBTQ equality. It is no surprise that the one demographic that did not disown the comedy legend after her infamous Trump photo was the LGBTQ community.

The night was full of raw, unfiltered laughter, but it came with a strong political and emotional narrative. Mixed in with the stories of Trump where the usual dick jokes, use of language as foul as the word ‘cunt’, and regaling stories of Kim Kardashian and Kathy’s mother, Maggie Griffin. But in the end, it was a story of a woman the government try to silence, one they told told to shut up. Nevertheless … she persisted.